abstract:Laboratorios Syntex SA was a pharmaceutical company formed in Mexico City in 1944 by Russell Marker to manufacture therapeutic steroids from the Mexican yams called cabeza de negro (Dioscorea mexicana) and Barbasco (Dioscorea composita). The demand for barbasco by Syntex initiated the Mexican barbasco trade.
Robert Baile, 52, spent 20 years as a research chemist for Syntex Pharmaceuticals (now Roche) and five home-brewing in his basement before buying into the business in 1996.
His shares in Syntex, which prospered in the 1960s and 1970s, bankrolled a personal gallery which once included at least eight Picassos, half a dozen Giacomettis and three Degas.